In my last blog I forgot to mention we were transported to Da Nang which was about an hour away to fly out from the airport there to Hanoi (when I researched this before coming out to Vietnam it wasn't clear to me how to be getting around, but once you're in a place its easier to book and listen to the locals). Most hostels will sort a transfer for you usually paid in American dollars. At this point mine and Lauren's ability to say Hello and Thank you in Vietnamese is fully in use (Ca'mon and going down in your tone on the 'mon' for the pronunciation for thank you).

When we arrived in Hanoi we were very tired and had an hour long taxi journey (it was rush hour) to get to our hostel, Central Backpackers 3 (a place recommended by a friend we met previously). As soon as we got out the taxi, we saw Sara and Jess the Aussie girls from our room in Hoi An having a beer on a street side place. We dropped our bags up in our room and went down to say Hi properly. They were with four other guys (can't remember names I wasn't too chatty as I was so tired!) and were going for a wonder for dinner so we chose to join them to have a glimpse of the city before bed. Unfortunately while we were out, Lauren was experiencing symptoms of food poisoning (could have been the Burger King at the airport….) so the girls walked us back to the hostel and helped out with providing sick tablets whilst asking us to come on the boat trip to Ha Long Bay in the morning instead of us going on Sunday. We decided to book it up in hope Lauren would feel better and Lauren and I got an early night.

Saturday - Trip Day 1

Thankfully in the morning, Lauren felt better and we were up bright and early, got back and had breakfast all by 8am. We bumped into our Aussie friends who has been partying until early hours in the morning so they were amusingly disorientated (I caught Sara riding up and down in the lift) and hungover…so I was glad we'd got an early night to say the least! Despite this they were still their loud bubbly selves, and it was clear from the moment the trip register was being taken that the weekend was going to be full of banter.

I had flashbacks to school trips as our tour guide is trying to organize 20 of us (most of which realizing at this point were also hungover so were also loud and probably slightly drunk still). Anyway, Sara and I collected giant water bottles which we referred to as our water babies for the rest of the trip, and our tour guide, who us girls later were constantly referring to as 'Dad' was doing multiple register calls. Dad seemed to have lost someone called 'Eden' so the group were all hysterically shouting out the name and making jokes about Eden, to find about 20 minutes later it was a girl called Irene who had been with the group the whole time, poor Dad had been reading it wrong all along.

After locating 'Eden', we then had Isaac evicted from our bus with Dad promising his friends he'd join us on our boat later (some sort of mess up by the hostel), so we all waved Isaac off on his own and headed off on the 3 and a half hour bus trip.

Another coach and another two boats later, we arrive around 1pm on our 'Party boat' (although since hearing the events of the 'Castaway' boat trip, our trip was far more classy - always classy, never trashy as my girls from home would say!) and we checked in to what was the nicest room we've been in yet. Lunch was served and I was always sure to rally up the 'no seafood group' (which was mainly me, Sara, Marco, Tom and Claudia, with some strays who changed their minds daily) and we sailed onto the Ha Long Bay caves.

Dad told us a bit about the ancient story of a dragon believed to have blown fire and left these gigantic rocks here which inside the caves had shapes of animals molded in the walls. It was beautiful inside and I really enjoyed going through and seeing the strange eroded walls. However, none us could spot the animal shapes and as you can imagine at this point there are groups about Dad having taken some special substances in order to have been able to see the things he was telling us. It was Ok though because Dad found the funny side of the jokes and joined in with the group banter pointing out to rocks or cave parts that were shaped like private body parts!

With the caves all done, we got back on board and sailed for a little longer. This was probably my favorite part of my time in Vietnam yet, sipping on my gin and tonic looking out at the islands and watching butterflies come off them and flutter across the boat. I took a video clip to remember it listening to the boat playing the acoustic version of 'Everybody wants to rule the world' and feeling at that moment like all my anxieties and stresses of life had been lifted. I hadn't realized that Ha Long Bay as a place was so big with so many Islands, it was really something which when I looked around felt like it wasn't real.

We eventually arrived at a spot for Kayaking, Lauren and I paddled around jokingly shouting out our friends name 'Wesley' who had said he'd be around Ha Long Bay on one of the boat trips on the Saturday, until we then sat still and watched the sun disappear before paddling back to the boat.

Everyone then took the opportunity to be jumping off the top of the boat but the water at this part was muggy and smelt funny so I kept away and took pictures, then showered for dinner. After some good chat at the no seafood end of the table, everybody was starting to chat to one another a bit more, Loz, Jess, Sara and I were dishing out more nicknames for people. Some of the group nicknames were 'Canada' - a guy called Justin who seemed to be an evident enthusiast for getting the group all together to encourage games and getting to know each other (we didn't realize at this point he works for Central Backpackers and so this sort of thing is his job outside of him hanging out with friends), anyway Lauren to an immediate disliking to him declaring how she hates 'forced fun'. I thought Canada was simply an enthusiastic character and found it even more comical how much he pissed Lauren off so nothing to dislike, simply a friendly outgoing guy. Then there was Joe who was nicknamed 'Tarzan', if you see a picture of him he look basically like Tarzan. I was being called 'Cautious Kirsty' for my complete engagement in Health and Safety with everything and always referring to where we are at with the itinerary I'd saved on my phone. Mario was another huge character for his amazing ability to dance non-stop…I insisted he bring out his own 'Fitness with Mario' DVD as none of us could keep up with his solo's. Isaac had also been located on the boat next door to us at this point so his friend David was happy, and poor Christof who was a shyer character had everyone pretending it was his birthday and singing happy birthday to him making him do shots just for the laugh of it. There was also a Vietnamese guy who ended up being called 'Mr Swan' simply because I heard his name wrong, but he thought it was great. We played some cards and had a dance on the boat (Lauren and I even got a couple of people to help me get her up into a flying angel - unfortunately we didn't capture this on camera!) and I went off to bed earlier than everyone else as I was feeling tired and missing the boyfriend back at home.